Chamber and committees

Okay.

Sure.

Could you come back to us on that?

Thank you. That is helpful. Those are very reasonable points.

Dr Whelan, you have spoken quite a lot about the real challenges for universities, such as the lateness of identifying which young person is going to which institution, the building of early transitional relationships and transitional plans being more difficult with higher education. Who should take the lead? This might be your opportunity to say that there is something that we could change, irrespective of the bill, to give universities more of a chance to build deeper, stronger, quicker and more meaningful relationships with young people before they go to university.

I found the correspondence to be informative in relation to the ambitions of the Conveners Group and the wider Parliament to embed the scrutiny of net zero into the work not just of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee—I acknowledge its convener, Edward Mountain, who is with us today, as he is a member of this committee—but of all parliamentary committees as we scrutinise legislation.

However, the letter also said:

“The Group noted that it was important that the Scottish Government was able to provide essential data to facilitate this scrutiny work. With this in mind, you will have seen the correspondence that I have had with the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero requesting better information on this; the Group will return to this at our meeting later this month.”

I have not seen that correspondence, and I am unaware of whether the Scottish Government has replied to it. I would like to see those two essential pieces of evidence before we make a specific commitment to do further work, or even decide what such further work might look like, in relation to our approach to any changing of standing orders or rules in the Parliament with regard to net zero.

Apologies. I am testing your patience this morning, convener.

I was holding back from saying this, but I cannot help but want to be part of the discussion. I apologise for that.

Mr Mountain is right. If it is not a stage 3 process and there is a limited number of votes, a clear declaration from the proxy openly and transparently in Parliament on how the vote has been cast is absolutely the way to do it. However, there must surely be an information technology solution once a clear statement has been made at the start of a period of voting. I will not say what my IT solution would be; we would be able to ask IT individuals to suggest what that should be. However, there must surely be such a solution.

We do not all have to do a roll call vote at stage 3, so why should an individual with a proxy vote be any different? Why should that be a roll call vote while everybody else’s deliberative votes are not done in that way? Things should be done on an equitable basis after the initial declaration, and an IT solution would be the most effective way forward.

In his initial comments, I think that Edward Mountain was saying that we should look to see what happens elsewhere—I am sorry if I have captured that inaccurately.

We talk about getting working conditions right in order for MSPs to be supported, but I have no idea what rights the wider parliamentary staff have when they face the exact same life circumstances. I do not know whether there is a role for us to play in drawing to the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body’s attention the fact that we are seeking to consolidate what we think should be key rights in the workplace for MSPs and that we wonder how that is mirrored with regard to the wider rights that are extended to staff in this place. They will not all be employed by the corporate body—there will be a variety of contractual arrangements—but I am conscious that we are not the only people working in this Parliament.

When we are looking at whether we should put structures, definitions or criteria around who qualifies as a close relative, it is relevant to note that we already have a precedent in adoptive and foster parents and kinship carers. The term “kinship” does not always mean a blood relative; it is a wider and looser term that acknowledges the relationship of love and care that people can have with someone else without defining it further.

I think that we have already taken a more permissive and flexible view, and I do not think that it would serve us well to define what a close relative is. I think that we either give discretion or we do not. We have given the Presiding Officer discretion and I have every faith that that will be exercised appropriately.

I apologise for what will be a bit of mission drift here. I know that we are looking at proxy voting, but we are considering one group of workers in the Parliament getting more flexible working to suit their personal circumstances in relation to an end-of-life situation and at the point of bereavement. There are whole groups of workers employed in the Parliament that we, as a committee, are not directly responsible for. However, it might be worth while drawing the progressive nature of how we are seeking to support MSPs in such circumstances to the attention of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body and asking it to reflect on that in relation to the wider workforce.